Stereotyping The Hobbit
Stereotypes are qualities given to a group of people based on their race, or the qualities they have. They take something that is partly true about someone and believe it is true about the whole race. For example, in Asia they hold education very highly and Asian people typically do very well in school. The stereotype regarding Asians is that they are all very good at math. This is not true. I have some Asian friends and they struggle with math just as much as I do. Many stereotypes exist today. They are bad because we just assume we what the person is like without getting to know them.
The stereotyped image I brought into class was a picture of an Italian man. He had his hair spiked up, his skin spray tanned orange, and was wearing a wife-beater. This image is how we perceive Italian men to be. We view them this way because that is how we see them on the show Jersey Shore. All of the people on the show are dressed, and look like the picture I brought in. In reality only some Italians look that way. The majority of them look and act like ordinary people. Just because someone is Italian does not mean that they dress and act like what we think they should. You cannot judge someone based on how they look.
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, this proves very true. There are a few characters throughout this story that break the stereotypes of themselves. The biggest example of this is with Mr. Bilbo Baggins. Bilbo is a hobbit. Hobbits are described as tiny, little beings who love to eat, drink, relax, and blow smoke rings. They are not fond of anything that deals with adventure, and they would prefer to stay in their cozy little hobbit holes all day long. As a hobbit, Bilbo would seem like the most unlikely hero you could ever imagine. As the story progresses he becomes more of a hero, and less of a scared little hobbit. Evan though he is such a